What is better than playing a game with some friends? Playing a game with ALL of your friends. Spry Fox (Realm of the Mad God, Alphabear, Triple Town) announces the Open Beta for the free-to-play, 60-player, super-cooperative, top-down MMO shooter “Steambirds Alliance.”

With the first beta starting May 24 to 26, the team will open the servers, and everyone is invited to take the fight to Meowza. Download the game from Steam and get ready to jump in immediately. Further betas will be held every weekend as we head into summer, so everyone will have a chance to play; additional weekday betas are also likely to roll out.

Fly with up to 60 (yes 60) of your feathered friends in an open world full of cruel cat bosses and endless waves of deadly bullets. Unlock and fly a wide variety of planes, each with their own unique abilities. You want to be a healer? Pick a Paladin. Provide your allies with a crucial shield during combat? Shield maiden! Even when you lose your favorite plane, the RPG mechanics such as XP and skilltrees will allow for continuous progress.

Steambirds Alliance Teaser Trailer - YouTube

Experience hundreds of unique enemies, a wide variety of secret missions and many, many bosses. Enjoy gameplay that has been carefully built from the ground-up to encourage fun coop experiences and minimize friction between friends and strangers in a griefing free environment.

Team up with your fellow birds to end the reign of Meowza, the evil cat overlord.

Steambirds Alliance is scheduled for release this summer on Windows and Mac OSX, with console releases planned for a later date. For more information, visit http://steambirds.com, join the official Spry Fox Discord community, and follow @SteambirdsGame on Twitter.

The upcoming RTS game created by the Command & Conquer veterans at Petroglyph is now due to release late afternoon on May 29th, one day earlier than previously announced.

Conan Unconquered - Co-op Multiplayer & Challenge Mode - YouTube

“We’re eagerly looking forward to launch and to getting Conan Unconquered into the hands of players. The game has really come together and although the skill cap is high, it’s tremendously fun to play,” says Lawrence Poe, Chief Product Officer at Conan Unconquered publisher Funcom.

Last October, we pulled back the curtain on Project xCloud – our game-streaming technology. Our vision for Xbox is that you can play the games you want, with the people you want, on the devices you want. xCloud brings us closer to fully realising that vision. Our teams around the globe have been hard at work, building out and testing the system. We recently rolled out an alpha version to Microsoft employees through our take home program and we’re using the feedback to make improvements and ensure Project xCloud offers customers a great experience.

Today you can play three generations of amazing games on Xbox One. That means that Project xCloud has the technical capability to stream more than 3500 games, without any changes or modifications required by a developer. In other words, developers will be able to dramatically scale their existing games across devices, with no additional development, no additional code base maintenance and no separate updates. When a developer updates the Xbox One version of their title, those updates will also apply to all versions available on Project xCloud without any additional work.

Project xCloud: Gaming with you at the center - YouTube

There are currently more than 1900 games in development for Xbox One – all of which could run on Project xCloud. Developers creating those games continue working normally – building with the tools they have – while we do the work to make their games accessible to the broadest set of players possible.

The power of Project xCloud – the seamless compatibility for developers and the new places to play for gamers – comes from Azure datacentres around the world with hardware that shares a common set of components with our Xbox consoles. We’ve already deployed our custom Project xCloud blades to datacentres across 13 Azure regions with an initial emphasis on proximity to key game development centres in North America, Asia and Europe. Today, development teams large and small around the world can easily test and play their games directly from the cloud without having to port to a new platform. This is just the beginning of our buildout, with our ultimate goal of supporting gamers in Azure regions around the world.

We also recently added enhancements to our standard Xbox Developer Kit, (XDK) to add support for streaming. One API we’re really excited about is the new “IsStreaming” API which allows any game to know if it’s streaming. Games can then cue features and functionality to enhance the streaming experience, for instance adjusting font sizes for smaller displays or hosting multiplayer matches on a single server to reduce latency. We’ll continue to look for ways to empower developers to tailor their games for the many ways their customers play.

Project xCloud is an exciting journey that we are all on together. We can’t wait to invite the community to provide feedback, help us shape it and participate in development in a very open and transparent way. Stay tuned…

Green Man Gaming is throwing one final party to celebrate its 9th birthday by bringing back a whole load of games that were featured in the Birthday Sale with an encore tomorrow, 25th May 2019. The Birthday Sale Encore will feature over 100 games for 24 hours only.

Customers will be able to enjoy big savings on their favourite titles as well as free gifts or DLC with selected purchases to celebrate the end of their Birthday sale.

Railway Empire gets brand new DLC in the form of the new France DLC pack, available now for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, priced at $12.99. In addition to the new DLC, Update 1.9 is live now for all platforms.

In the wake of Emperor Napoleon III’s exile, the French monarchy has collapsed for the second time, and the Third Republic has taken power. In the Railway Empire – France DLC players decide the country’s industrial future. Either take sides with a militaristic general and increase the strength of France’s borders in anticipation of war or help the minister of public work to rebuild the infrastructure of the country and undertake the controversial new “Eiffel Tower” project.

Railway Empire - France DLC (US) - YouTube

Features:

New scenario – 1874-1890

Map expansion: France (available in Free Game and Sandbox modes)

10 historical engines: Coupe Vent (4-4-0) and Forquenot (2-4-2)

More than 12 new tradeable goods (wine and soft cheese) and 31 new cities

‘Concession’ feature: The map is divided into sections. Buy concessions to gain access to new building grounds. Also available on the full North American map

Get ready to start your engines for a new Heavy Metal Machines tournament with cash prizes beginning this Saturday (25th). This new edition of the Metal League Championship will take place in the South American server, but players from all over the world are welcome to join. The next field of battle to host the Metal League will be the North American server, with a tournament coming in August.

This Metal League has a prize pool of R$ 15,000, roughly US$ 3,700, as well as ingame items.

The tournament consists of two phases: the Qualifiers goes from May 25th until June 29th, from 4 PM to 10 PM UTC 0, and is open to all players that use the team feature and register for the event. Then we have the Playoffs, where the 8 highest-ranked teams from the Qualifiers face each other.

The prize will be shared between team members, and the four best teams are rewarded like this:

1st place – R$ 6,000.00, about US$ 1,480.00

2nd place – R$ 4,500.00, about US$ 1,110.00

3rd place – R$ 3,000.00, about US$ 740.00

4th place – R$ 1,500.00, about US$ 370.00

So join up with friends, or, if you are looking for teammates, get in the official Heavy Metal MachinesDiscord channel as the Community Managers are always welcome to help.

With more than a dozen playable characters, the game features dedicated servers and is available for free both on Steam or as a downloadable game client.

More information about Heavy Metal Machines can be found on the official website.

Eager EVE Online players will get a sneak peek of the action with the new EVE Online: Invasion cinematic trailer.

EVE Online: Invasion Cinematic Trailer - YouTube

EVE Online: Invasion, the exciting and free new expansion coming next week, brings the fearsome Triglavian forces to known space for the first time. Fight for your territory and earn lucrative rewards as the Triglavians lay siege to your star systems.

The Invasion expansion introduces three new and formidable Triglavian ships in the Tech II category and there will be additions to the Mutaplasmid system. Invasion also brings further iterations to the War Declaration system that will consolidate recent improvements, as well as added content and user experience improvements to The Agency, helping you to access varied and exciting content more easily.

Get hyped for the fight and rally your allies to defend New Eden. Take control of your future and be a part of unfolding history as EVE Online: Invasion changes the universe forever!

*The spotlights are beating down on you. You’re moments away from winning the grand finals. Hundreds of thousands of people are watching. There’s a stack of money on the line, along with the cursed blessing of fame and glory.

Not too long ago, this scenario was a reality only in traditional sports, like football and hockey. Esports changed all that; they finally caught up, giving virtually anyone a chance to be a star in tournaments all over the world. And as this young industry continues to grow, the culture and lifestyle around it are starting to take shape. Up until recently, though, a lot of that had been happening without much thought for long-term health. Enter MADMONQ.

MADMONQ is a fresh, European startup whose innovative food supplement supports complex mental and physical performance in ways specific to gamer needs. The big differentiator is that MADMONQ is a chewable tablet and that it was developed with an almost obsessive focus on health and long-term benefits.

These tasty purple “pills” are formulated with natural, pharmaceutical-grade ingredients to improve reaction time while delivering crash-free energy and focus. In practice, this equates to helping you crush leaderboards and improve faster. Additionally, the ingredients in MADMONQ also work synergistically to provide long-term health benefits, like better memory, as well as improved processing power, eye health and overall metabolism. Beyond all this, though, MADMONQ is loaded with adaptogens that provide its strongest and most unique benefit: making our bodies more resistant to stress, kind of like a Potion of Protection, just IRL. (check out their science page for more information)

Talking about IRL, students are the second largest consumers, after gamers. Although MADMONQ was created specifically for gamers, the benefits intertwine with the needs of students. Better focus, memory, stress control and more, are all factors crucial to students; especially during finals. Stress control goes a long way as we know stress is the main antagonist in our ability to learn. It’s what “kills” a large number of students during these heavily pressured times, when the stress is too strong and one cannot handle it; your focus drops, panic comes and goes, harder to remember what you read, procrastination, denial, until there is no time left to catch up and you get a mental breakdown. MADMONQ helps you out with that, but definitely cannot do all the work, in the end it’s all how you face your challenges, just always a little help can go a long way.

Also, if you are like us and you study at night and sometimes neglect sleep, which we do not recommend, but if you do pull off an all-nighter from time to time, make sure to check out 5 tips on how to survive after an all-nighter.

And with tens of thousands of packs sold already, along with several high-profile streamers and students that passed their finals, it seems MADMONQ is on track for making its mark on gaming.

Meet MADMONQ® - Better energy for gamers - YouTube

THE BIG WHY BEHIND MADMONQ

“Our drive to develop MADMONQ® was born in 2015, when pharmaceuticals in gaming started making news. And not in a good way: gamers were abusing prescription medications.” – Michal Noga, CEO of MADMONQ, “Yup. Prescription medications – stuff developed to treat mental disorders like ADHD and narcolepsy was being abused by healthy players to enhance their focus.”

We asked:

“Should healthy people be using prescription meds for gaming?”

And Michal answered:

“Good question. We strongly believe they shouldn’t. Given where esports is heading, we understand the appeal of developing a competitive edge, but medications like these are certainly not the way to go. They are habit-forming and have the potential to wreak serious havoc on your brain chemistry, leaving you depressed, confused and, worst of all, addicted. This is especially true for younger players, whose minds are still developing. Reading about so many gamers and the reckless risks they were taking for better performance forced us to take a long, hard look at something the gaming world was ignoring. And what we found rocked us to the core.”

Another statement Michal Noga made:

“We not only wanted to give gamers access to the best product for energy and focus, we wanted to make sure their brains stayed healthy in the long-term, too.”

That is why MADMONQ is packed with tons of natural superfood ingredients that help a gamer’s brain stay on point. No sugar here, or artificial colorants or preservatives, either. The natural ingredients in MADMONQ (especially the adaptogens) have been safely used for millennia to adapt and keep cool in high-stakes situations, from vikings and monks to pilots and the military.

And that’s not all. Being competitive today now demands a lot more than just mindlessly hammering away at a keyboard. It means optimizing your body across multiple fronts; your body, diet, and routines, along with the way you learn and sleep. MADMONQ wants to help with that as well, by fighting the common behaviors and beliefs that stigmatize gaming.

“No single pill or supplement can do it all – not even ours,” says Noga, “Professional gaming houses are proving that gamers feel and perform best when they take care of their bodies. But the methods they use to accomplish that remain widely unknown. Our mission is about sharing them and making healthy gaming practices more widespread, both for the sake of the gamer, and the game.” Cringey, but admirable.

Speaking of cringe, their approach to the gaming community is also unique. MADMONQ has made a name for themselves on Twitch with their original ideas for supporting their partners. They regularly gift out subs (wink wink) and keep Twitch communities engaged with challenges designed specifically for each streamer. They also put serious effort into supporting their streamers towards a healthier lifestyle, like baiting them into the gym with new merch. All to their communities’ amusement. Twitch is love, Twitch is life. Kappa

Squad and Private Division are proud to bring you a brand-new gameplay trailer for Kerbal Space Program’s forthcoming new DLC, Breaking Ground.

The trailer plays host to several of Breaking Ground’s exciting fresh features, including new robotic parts for more advanced creations, deployable scientific tools to collect important data, strange surface features to explore, and more!

1047 Games has officially released the fast-paced, sci-fi, competitive multiplayer first-person shooter Splitgate: Arena Warfare. Free to download and play now on Windows PC via Steam, Splitgate uses player-controlled portals to create a new dimension of arena combat.

Players can also purchase the special Splitgate: Arena Warfare Founder’s Edition, which includes cosmetic bonuses like the exclusive Dweller armor set, four additional Dweller skins, exclusive M90 weapon skin, five bonus SWAG packs (which can be used to unlock other cosmetic items), and more for $19.99 on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/677620/Splitgate_Arena_Warfare.

Splitgate: Arena Warfare Official Launch Trailer - YouTube

Additionally, 1047 Games has teamed up with Twitch for the Twitch Rivals: Splitgate: Arena Warfare Tournament, featuring 16 teams consisting of four streamers each competing live for the chance to win $50,000. The competition kicks off at 9am PT/1pm ET on Tuesday, May 28, and all the action can be seen live at https://www.twitch.tv/twitchrivals.

1047 Games is also partnering with SLIVER.tv: exclusive Splitgate in-game skins will be available to viewers who watch streamers broadcast Splitgate gameplay to SLIVER.tv. Viewers will earn Theta Fuel (“TFuel” for short) as they watch. TFuel can be used to purchase exclusive gun skins in the SLIVER shop or donated back to streamers.